Hello, friends! Welcome to a special “Turkey Day” edition of “Music for the Masses.” First things first… Happy Thanksgiving everybody!! Having fun yet? If your household is anything like the Bell household, and I’m sure it’s EXACTLY like mine, you are just now beginning to remember that Thanksgiving is that one, “magical” time of the year where we gather our family and friends into one, tight-fitting location to firmly re-establish each and every dysfunction. Okay, maybe not every dysfunction… hell, for the Bell’s to cover everything we would need to extend Thanksgiving by a couple of days… a week, at the most. You’re also remembering that Thanksgiving is a time to dust off and celebrate your proud family traditions. For me, those “proud family traditions” include an under-cooked turkey, a fully cooked bag of “innards” inside said turkey (I get the neck!!), a gin-soaked grandmother telling jokes that would make a sailor blush (where the hell does she hear this shit?), a bathroom that smells like somebody killed a skunk in a French morgue after one of grandpa’s “movements” and, of course, my “uncle” showing up, “dressed to the nines” and looking like a reject from a bad Baz Luhrmann film. Good times… good times.

My Uncle Nancy

Yep, as you can probably guess, I’m glad that “Thanksgiving at the Bell’s,” much like a married man, only comes once a year. However, lest we forget, Thanksgiving isn’t just a “frying pan to the face” reminder of just HOW fucked up a family can be when assembled under one roof. It’s also a time for one to give thanks to… well, to whatever the hell it is you’re thankful for. Personally, I’m thankful for lots of things. For instance, I’m thankful that Michael Jackson now lives in Ireland, where, one assumes, he is trying to determine if young Irish boys are “magically delicious.”

I’m thankful for Kevin Federline’s “talent” and Brittany’s parenting skills and the many hours of laughter those two have brought me. I’m thankful for Pearl Jam fans and the numerous and colorful ways they told me to go fuck myself when I made fun of their “favorite” band awhile back. I’m thankful for the cookouts I attended at Reverend Ted Haggard’s house this summer. Say what you will about the man, but let me tell you this… he is an absolute magician with those wieners!!

I’m thankful that I’ve never met Dateline reporter Chris Hansen. I’m thankful for internet porn sites that have shown me the glory of the Cleveland Steamer, the Rusty Trombone, “ATM,” “Cream Pies,” Bukaki and Brazilian Fart Porn (yes, sadly, that really exists). I’m thankful to Paris Hilton for showing the world that you don’t need talent to be famous. I’m thankful that I was never an alter boy thus denying a Catholic priest a chance to size up my anus with his index finger. In that regard, I guess I’m also thankful I was never in the Boy Scouts. I’m thankful for Don Julio Tequila® and its ability to turn this…

Into this. . .

But you know what I’m most thankful for? Why, I’m most thankful for you, dear reader, and your enormous capacity for putting up with all my bullshit for the past year. All ten of you are the ABSOLUTE best and I’d give each and every one of you a giant kiss right this very minute, but I got this sore-thing on my lip and… well… you know.

But enough about all of that. It’s time now to check out some new music! We’re keeping it short this week as I take a quick look at the soundtrack to the new Tenacious D movie and Double A fires up the latest from Snoop Dogg. Plus, we provide another opportunity for aspiring artists to “Pimp Their Band.” Should be fun. So, what do you say? Let’s get to it, shall we??!!

I don’t know about you, but I cannot wait to see this movie. In fact, just the thought of seeing it makes me more euphoric than Lindsay Lohan with a belly full of pills and an arm-full of knife wounds. Sure, some of the things I saw in an early trailer at Comic-Con this year and some of the things I’ve heard regarding the movie (especially the whole “flying Sasquatch” thing) are fucking bizarre even by Tenacious D standards, but, regardless, I’m confident that if anybody can pull it off, it’s Jack Black and Kyle Gass. They always do. After all, they’re fucking rock gods…

Seriously. I LOVE the “D” and their first studio album with its blend of humor and acoustic “folk metal” is absolutely brilliant. In fact, I shit you not when I say that it is one of my all time favorite discs. If you don’t have it yet, buy it. Now. Go ahead… I’ll wait. “Kielbasa Sausage… your butt checks is warm.” Pure gold. I’m also confident that the new movie will be absolutely brilliant, but after giving the accompanying soundtrack more than enough time to grow on me, I gotta say… this is not a disc befitting the “Greatest Band in the World.”

For those of you playing along at home, all of the elements that made the first disc so damn entertaining are present here: JB’s surprisingly impressive voice, KG’s surprisingly nimble guitar work and liberal rhyming of the words “cock” and “rock.” Unfortunately, none of these elements are given sufficient time to shine and too much of the disc’s RIDICULOUSLY short running time is spent flushing out the plot of the movie… which, as I’ve already noted, most of us haven’t seen. I gotta ask, guys… what the fuck?? Why the hell release it a week and half before the movie? WHY??!! I haven’t seen a gross miscalculation on this scale since Michael Richards sparred with some hecklers. What I’m trying to say here is that the end result is a choppy and, perhaps more surprisingly, largely unfunny disc. I’m guessing that when paired with the movie, this soundtrack is going to prove frickin’ (yes, frickin’) hilarious but until then, and as a stand alone disc, it just falls flat.

“D” fans deserve more and, I’m confident, we will eventually get it. Unfortunately, now is not the time.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Snoop Dogg’s “Glamour Shots®?”

You remember Pee Wee’s Playhouse? You remember how every show started off with Pee Wee going to his robot Conky and finding out the secret word for the day? If Pee Wee had been listening to The Blue Carpet Treatment by Snoop Dogg, the secret word would have been “Boring.” Either that or “Collapsible Baton,” but that’s a joke for a whole other criminal trial. I didn’t have that high of hopes, no pun intended, for this disk. I was never a huge Snoop fan, but I have bumped his tunes several times in the past. That’s what makes this album all the more disappointing. I like they guy, I just don’t like this album. Hopefully me saying this wont force Snoop to come after me with the aforementioned “Collapsible Baton.” Well, not the same baton he tried to smuggle on that plane. I’m guessing that one got confiscated, but I would assume Snoop has two or three back-ups. He seems like that kind of person. But I digress.

Like I said, this album is just flat-out-boring. I have listened to it several times and I cannot recall anything that stands out. I’m even listening to it as I write this, and besides the song that’s on, I can’t tell you a thing about this disk. Well, that’s not entirely true, but I’m trying to prove a point here. If I were to choose another word to describe this album, it would be “lazy.” Snoop, to me, has always been all about “being different than everyone else.” From his lyrical stylings to his delivery, no one else on the scene sounds quite like Snoop. While this album is still very “Snoop,” the flashy raps are gone. All the lyrics here are stale, stale, stale… kinda like Snoop just needed money to keep himself in “the weed.”

Nothing on this album stands out. Okay… if you were to twist my arm, or threaten me with a collapsible baton, I would say that the song “Candy (Drippin’ Like Water)” is the best on the disk, but even that’s stretching it. Filled with guest stars like E-40, MC Eiht, Daz and Kurupt, this song should be a good one. Unfortunately it falls just as flat as the others. With so many good guest stars on the album, Dr. Dre, B-Real, R. Kelly, The Game, Jaime Foxx, you would think that there would be something to go on here. Come on Snoop! You have R. Kelly on this album! At least put some rhymes on there about peeing on underage girls! Well, if anything, at least I got to make several jokes about Snoop and his “collapsible baton.”

R. Kelly

Rating: 1 out of 5

BAND OF THE WEEK!!!!

You know? In addition to MySpace being a GREAT place to meet a Dateline reporter. . .

it’s also a great place to check out some new and/or unsigned artists. To honor these individuals and their art, I thought it would be cool to feature a band here each time out, sans any remarks or comments from yours truly. Consider this your place to shine. If you want you or your band featured here, just drop me a line. Up this week…

Band’s Bio: ” Since my early childhood years, it has been a dream of mine to one day have or play in a slamming rock band. I got my first electric guitar at age 6. By the 5th grade I was trying to get something going.

It wasn’t easy being a 5th grader and trying to find a group of guys to jam with. This is when I met Kevin Knox (better known as “Big Kev”). He quickly became a good friend and a really good bass player. The next big thing that happened came when we met Rance Northern.

Me and Big Kev were invited by Rance’s dad to a Christmas party at their house in 2004. We were told to bring all of our equipment because we were going to rock out that night. Rance played the drums all night. I always knew he could play but it just blew us away! We knew right then we had found our drummer and quickly began practicing regularly and learning cover songs and things like that.

All this time we are getting anxious for find a “kick ass” singer so we started letting our friends sit in and they sounded ok but we all wanted something better. Big Kev saved the day for us when he invited Brian Courtney to come and watch us play and sing a song or two. Kevin told us that Brian could sing and play the guitar. We were ready to listen.

So, next things next, we are at the “jam pad” and all these people are around listening to us play. We started playing “Creep” by the Stone Temple Pilots and Brian grabbed the microphone. WE WERE SHOCKED!!! Everbody in the room was like “Oh Hell Yea!!!….this guy has to be your new singer!

By March of 2005, STEEL LOADED was officially formed. So Let’s get JAMMING!!!”

—Taylor Williams

Message from the band: October 2006: Steel Loaded is back in the studio again. They are working on a 5 song demo with all new songs! It will be finished sometime in early 2007.

Be sure to check them out!!!

Well, folks, that’s going to do it for me and the gang this week, so. . .until next time… keep wearing it proud and playing it loud.